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Friday, July 12, 2013

Penguins prance at SeaWorld’s new exhibit, Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin. The exhibit features a dark ride with a
250-penguin finale. Photos by EVE EDELHEIT | Times

ORLANDO

Before losing its sheen like an iceberg with a bad case of global
warming, Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin, the new attraction at
SeaWorld, is an innovative how'd-they-do-it dazzler. The centerpiece of
the park's new tundric landscape, the spinny "dark" thriller pushes the
boundaries of ride technology — and keeps creative pace with those theme
park foes across Interstate 4.

Well, for a while at least.

Sure, SeaWorld has a bunch of rides, but it's mainly in the Shamu
biz. Go for the fish; stay for the Kraken. And yet, Empire of the
Penguin does two things that are decidedly Disney in vision. First off,
as guests enter the fictional world of baby Puck the Gentoo penguin —
and escape
90-degree-plus Florida outside — they are acclimated to
increasingly cooler climes: 60 degrees, 40 degrees, and finally 30
degrees, which allows the 250 real penguins, revealed at ride's end in
an indoor habitat, to feel as if they never left the igloo.

How is everyone at SeaWorld not getting frostbite? It's 21st century magic, I tell you!

Indeed, the cool-down is a slick trick. It's not jarring; in July, it's awesome.
It's also immersive, as the queue makes you feel more and more like,
well, frozen fowl. There is all manner of computer-generated animation
telling Puck's adorably fuzzy story (alas, more on that in a second). At
one point, your li'l penguin pal plays peek-a-boo with you, which ought
to help sell an extra 500 Puck plush dolls a day in the inevitable gift
shop.

Finally, you are ready to board your ginormous sci-fi curling stone.
That is, if Mr. Spock were a curling gold medalist for Vulcan. They're
calling this trackless, motion-based ride system state of the art, and
they're not kidding. I'm a certified theme park nerd, and these round,
gliding vessels — dreamed up by Oceaneering International, which also
created Universal's Spider-Man and Transformers rides — are unlike
anything I've ever seen or experienced. The ride's first few seconds are
the flat-out best, as these omnidirectional cars, using dead reckoning
to cross the paths of each other, float and spin and dance, a high-tech
ballet that's as soothing as it is fun.

Riders have the option to vote for "wild" or "mild" adventures, but
let it be known that wild IS mild. The actual mild? Well, it doesn't
boogie much at all. Without those glorious dance moves, Empire of the
Penguin is toothless. The three-minute-plus ride soon devolves into a
series of large, relatively unadorned screening rooms, as Puck navigates
his world both above the ice (happy) and below (look out for that
hungry seal).

After such a fantastic, goofy-grin beginning, the rest of the ride is
a startling letdown, mainly because the brilliant technology of the
ride system is ultimately undercut by the bargain-bin animation in the
ride itself — like those Disney knockoff 'toons on the shelves of
Walmart. (Who needs Tangled when you can watch Girl's Got Hair for only $2.99!)

Puck's evading the jaws of a predator should be thrilling, dangerous —
enough to gleefully freak out your children — especially with the
capabilities of the ride car's movement and the size of the enveloping
screen. But all immersive elements of the ride are gone by the end. They
cut corners in the wrong place. After all, this is Orlando, the most
vicious theme-park scrum in the world. You have to be better, smarter,
cooler at every turn.

It's hard to fault a ride that unloads into a jaw-dropping splash
zone of hundreds of real penguins gamboling about. (Here, they also
re-create sunrise and sunset for the birds, another cool trick of
acclimation.) And kudos to SeaWorld for its biggest expansion in 50
years; there's a lot to recommend about the entire Antarctica
experience. But with wait times currently around 120 minutes, Empire of
the Penguin, for all of its stunning innovation, will leave a lot of
riders cold for all the wrong reasons.

Sean Daly can be reached at sdaly@tampabay.com. Follow @seandalypoplife on Twitter.

If you go

Single-day tickets to
SeaWorld are $89, $81 for kids 3-9. There are discounts online and for
Florida residents, including the Fun Card promotion in which residents
can buy a single-day pass and get unlimited admission for the remainder
of 2013. Park hours vary.

Live Blackfooted Penguins in HD - Monterey Bay Aquarium

Aquarium of the Pacific Live Penguin Cam

Listen to the Gentoo Purr

The Torgersen Island Penguin Camera

The Penguin Camera is located on Torgersen Island (64°46’S, 64°04’W), off the coast of Anvers Island and less than a mile from Palmer Station. Torgersen Island is home to a colony of Adélie penguins numbering approximately 2,500. This camera is seasonal and operates primarily from October to February, the Adélie breeding season. The camera is solar-powered and may sometimes experience brief outages due to inclement weather. School classrooms and other educational demonstrations will often take control of the camera, moving it to gain better views of the colony.